Building a web-surfing PC

[watercooled]

I'm planning on building a web-surfing PC and I could use advice on which parts to buy. I'd be upgrading from a Northwood Celeron 2.4 so I'd obviously like it to be noticeably faster that that.
List of features/preferences:
Preferably low power consumption
Able to display 1680x1050
Planning to use Ubuntu at first, but may upgrade to Vista later
Budget of around £200 for hardware
Preferably micro-ATX
Branded PSU

What I've though of so far:

80GB HDD
2GB RAM
DVD ROM Drive

I already have monitor / keyboard / mouse etc

What about an AMD Athlon 64 X2 with 45W TDP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...icroprocessors

Any suggestions appreciated.

[staffsMike]

Your AMD chip from above is what I had in mind.

Antec NSK2480/3480 for Round £60/£70 takes care of the case and PSU.
AMD 740G mobo is great low power and blu ray/ HD capable.
Cheap HDD and RAM as you say.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The Antec Minuet 300 is also a decent case for around 60 quid:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Antec...50w-80plus-PSU

Scan sell a decent J and W 780G motherboard for around 55 quid. It even has 128mb of RAM on the motherboard for the integrated graphics too!!

Here it is:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/JandW...RAID-uATX-HDCP


It cannot handle the 125w Phenoms though but for general usage there is no need for such a processor anyway!!

Here is a review of the version which has only 64mb of RAM for the integrated graphics:

http://my.ocworkbench.com/2008/J&W/J...VD-AM2+/g1.htm


Scan were also selling a Samsung 80gb hard disk for under 23 quid:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/80Gb-...he-7200rpm-HDD

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is what I came up with from Scan:

Antec Minuet Piano Black Slimline PC Case inc 350w 80+ PSU £59.79

AMD Athlon 64 X2 5050e, Socket AM2, Dual Core, 2.6GHz, 512KB x 2 Cache, Retail £49.57

J&W JW-RS780UVD-AM2+(128M), AMD 780G, SAM2+, PCI-E 2.0x16, DDR2 1066, SATA II, SATA RAID, uATX, HDCP £55.38

80Gb Samsung HD082GJ, SATA300, 8Mb Cache, 7200rpm HDD £20.69

LG GH22NS40 22x DVD±R, 16xDVD±DL, DVD+RW x8/-RWx6 ,12xRAM SATA, Black, OEM £12.64

2GB (2x1GB) Corsair Value Select, DDR2 PC2-5300 (667), 240 Pin, Non-ECC Unbuffered, CAS 5-5-5-15 £22.99

Total: £221.06

I assumed that you have free Postage with Scan as you are a Hexus member. The hard drive, dvd drive and RAM are on Scan Today Only this weekend.

If you want to get the price down a bit you could always go for a 350w Silverstone ST35F(£22.99 on Today Only this weekend) and a cheap mATX case for under £25:

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/Asus-...X-Case-w-o-PSU

[staffsMike]

Sounds good to me. But 740G will offer all the noticable bangs of the 780G (short of gaming) and is lower on power consumption.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would personally pay the extra £10 and get a 780G motherboard. The extra power of a sideport enabled 780G would useful for Compiz Fusion and the Vista effects for example.

[staffsMike]

I've got a 780V (sort of half way between the two) running vista graphics no probs Each to their own though.

[watercooled]

Many thanks for the help, everyone

[watercooled]

Is J&W an OK brand? Just I've never heard of them before.

[staffsMike]

They're a huge manafactuer iirc. Just not much of a brand name over here.

[watercooled]

OK thanks, just checking.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here is their website:

http://www.jwele.com/motherboard_detail.php?407

[watercooled]

Is Compiz Fusion part of Ubuntu?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Here are some details:

http://www.howtoforge.com/enabling-c...tu-8.10-nvidia

You need to enable it once the drivers for the graphics card are installed or activated. I use an old X1900gt but the HD3200 integrated graphics on the 780G motherboards will be good enough.